Starting Thailand with a BANGkok
We landed to the bustling city of Bangkok in the early evening. After a short ride in to our hotel, we awaited out friends to arrive from Australia before hitting up a 7/11 for some snacks and then heading to bed for an early night.
Some R&R
The next day saw me taking some time to have a girls day which consisted of a manicure, pedicure and getting pampered for 3 hours in the most luxurious nail salon I have ever been to. I then wondered around doing some shopping and taking in the chaos that is Bangkok before heading to the hotel too meet up with the rest of the group for some drinks at the pool. We all decided on an early night as we had a 6am pick up for our day tour the next day.
A very big day!!
We started the tour off with a visit to a local village on the banks of a salt farm. After trying the ridiculously strong coffee we boarded the local train to take us to the market. This is no ordinary market…it is one set up on the train track! It was a spectacular site to see the market fold in on its self every time a train came through and then with in seconds after, everything was back to business as usual. Something that is so hard to fathom, coming from Australia where level crossings are close to gone, let alone an active market on top of the tracks!
We made it through the market and headed to a coconut farm. We saw how they made candy, hair oils, bowls and snacks, leaving no part of the coconut unused or wasted. We then boarded the bus and headed for the main attraction, the floating markets.
This was an experience that I will never forget, made all the more enjoyable sharing the boat with our two friends. The market is situated on canals selling all sorts of souvenirs, food and beer as well as things like fruit and vegetables for the locals. We enjoyed some Chang’s and springrolls as we were driven from stall to stall. We enjoyed a delicious traditional Thai lunch before a very long bus ride back to the hotel, where we quickly changed and headed to a sports bar to watch the state of origin.
The night started with a beer tower and escalated from there. I remember that NSW won, but thats about all! We found ourselves at a 7/11 loading up on snacks before taking a death defying tuk tuk ride back to the hotel….I’m certain we arrived in roughly 30 seconds he was going so fast!
No way we were changing the tyre
The next morning was (again) a struggle with packing before heading to the airport. We were already cutting it very fine to check in for our flight, but things went down hill while our car hit something on the highway. With seconds the car was bumping along and it was clear we had a flat tyre. Normally the thought of changing a tyre wouldn’t be out of the question, but on a Bangkok freeway consisting of 8 lanes, it was a hard pass. Our replacement car arrived and we made it to our next flight. The one saving grace was the most delicious fried chicken we loaded up on before beading the plane to our next destination of Chiang Mai.